Taliban
UN: Women, children casualties on the rise in Afghanistan
More women and children were killed and wounded in Afghanistan in the first half of 2021 than in the first six months of any year since the United Nations began systematically keeping count in 2009, a U.N. report said Monday.
The war-torn country saw a 47% increase in the number of all civilians killed and wounded in violence across Afghanistan in the first six months of the year, compared to the same period last year, according to the report.
“I implore the Taliban and Afghan leaders to take heed of the conflict’s grim and chilling trajectory and its devastating impact on civilians,” said Deborah Lyons, the U.N. secretary-general’s special representative for Afghanistan.
Read:Women’s groups call for UN peacekeeping force in Afghanistan
“The report provides a clear warning that unprecedented numbers of Afghan civilians will perish and be maimed this year if the increasing violence is not stemmed,” Lyons added in a statement accompanying the report.
The Taliban have swiftly captured significant territory in recent weeks, seized strategic border crossings with several neighboring countries and are threatening a number of provincial capitals. The advances come as the last U.S. and NATO soldiers leave Afghanistan.
The report found a particularly sharp increase in killings and injuries since May, when international military forces began their withdrawal and the fighting intensified following the Taliban’s offensive.
The U.N. mission in Afghanistan reported in its Afghanistan Protection of Civilians in Armed Conflict midyear update 2021 that there were 1,659 civilians killed and 3,254 wounded. It said that’s a 47% increase compared with the same period last year.
Women and children made up close to half of all civilian casualties in the first half of 2021 at 46%, according to the report. Thirty-two percent were children, with 468 killed and 1,214 wounded. Fourteen percent of civilian casualties were women, with 219 killed and 508 wounded, the report said.
The U.S.-NATO withdrawal is more than 95% complete and due to be finished by Aug. 31.
While making swift gains on the ground, the Taliban have also said they do not want to monopolize power. However, they insist there won’t be peace in Afghanistan until there is a new negotiated government in Kabul and President Ashraf Ghani is removed from office.
Read:Afghan president slams Taliban; rockets target Kabul palace
Lyons, the U.N. envoy who also heads the U.N. mission in Afghanistan, called on the Taliban and Afghan leaders to intensify their efforts at the negotiating table. “Stop the Afghan against Afghan fighting. Protect the Afghan people and give them hope for a better future,” she said.
The U.N. report warned that without a significant de-escalation in violence, Afghanistan is on course for 2021 to have the highest ever number of documented civilian casualties in a single year since U.N. record-keeping in the country began.
The number of civilians killed and wounded in May and June is almost as many as recorded in the preceding four months. During May and June there were 2,392 casualties, with 783 killed and 1,609 wounded. That’s the highest for those months since systematic documentation began in 2009, the report said.
According to the report, much of the battlefield action during May and June took place outside of the cities. But the U.N. is concerned that if intensive military action is undertaken in urban areas with high population densities, the consequences for Afghan civilians could be catastrophic.
“The pursuit of a military solution will only increase the suffering of the Afghan people,” the report said.
It blamed anti-government forces for 64% of all civilian casualties, with 39% inflicted by the Taliban, nearly 9% by the Islamic State group and 16% undetermined. Afghan security forces were responsible for 23% of civilian casualties, and pro-government armed groups for 2%.
Read:To reach a peace deal, Taliban say Afghan president must go
The May 8 attack outside the Sayed ul-Shuhuda school in the Afghan capital of Kabul accounted for more than 300 civilian casualties, mostly girls, including 85 killed. No one has claimed responsibility for that attack, the report said.
The U.N. attributed 11% of all civilian casualties to crossfire during ground engagements in which the exact party responsible for casualties could not be determined.
According to the report, the main cause of civilian casualties was improvised explosive devices, followed by fighting on the ground and targeted killings.
To reach a peace deal, Taliban say Afghan president must go
The Taliban say they don’t want to monopolize power, but they insist there won’t be peace in Afghanistan until there is a new negotiated government in Kabul and President Ashraf Ghani is removed.
In an interview with The Associated Press, Taliban spokesman, Suhail Shaheen, who is also a member of the group’s negotiating team, laid out the insurgents’ stance on what should come next in a country on the precipice.
The Taliban have swiftly captured territory in recent weeks, seized strategic border crossings and are threatening a number of provincial capitals, as the last U.S. and NATO soldiers leave Afghanistan. This week, the top U.S. military officer, Gen. Mark Milley, told a Pentagon press conference that the Taliban have “strategic momentum,” and he did not rule out a complete Taliban takeover. But he said it is not inevitable. “I don’t think the end game is yet written,” he said.
Read:Afghan VP slams Pakistani trolls with an image of 1971 Pak Army surrender
Memories of the Taliban’s last time in power some 20 years ago, when they enforced a harsh brand of Islam that denied girls an education and barred women from work, have stoked fears of their return among many. Afghans who can afford it are applying by the thousands for visas to leave Afghanistan, fearing a violent descent into chaos. The U.S.-NATO withdrawal is more than 95% complete and due to be finished by Aug. 31.
Shaheen said the Taliban will lay down their weapons when a negotiated government acceptable to all sides in the conflict is installed in Kabul and Ghani’s government is gone.
“I want to make it clear that we do not believe in the monopoly of power because any governments who (sought) to monopolize power in Afghanistan in the past, were not successful governments,” said Shaheen, apparently including the Taliban’s own five-year rule in that assessment. “So we do not want to repeat that same formula.”
But he was also uncompromising on the continued rule of Ghani, calling him a war monger and accusing him of using his Tuesday speech on the Islamic holy day of Eid-al-Adha to promise an offensive against the Taliban. Shaheen dismissed Ghani’s right to govern, resurrecting allegations of widespread fraud that surrounded Ghani’s 2019 election win. After that vote, both Ghani and his rival Abdullah Abdullah declared themselves president. After a compromise deal, Abdullah is now No. 2 in the government and heads the reconciliation council.
Ghani has often said he will remain in office until new elections can determine the next government. His critics — including ones outside the Taliban — accuse him of seeking only to keep power, causing splits among government supporters.
Last weekend, Abdullah headed a high-level delegation to the Qatari capital Doha for talks with Taliban leaders. It ended with promises of more talks, as well as greater attention to the protection of civilians and infrastructure.
Shaheen called the talks a good beginning. But he said the government’s repeated demands for a ceasefire while Ghani stayed in power were tantamount to demanding a Taliban surrender.
“They don’t want reconciliation, but they want surrendering,” he said.
Before any ceasefire, there must be an agreement on a new government “acceptable to us and to other Afghans,” he said. Then “there will be no war.”
Read:Afghan president slams Taliban; rockets target Kabul palace
Shaheen said under this new government, women will be allowed to work, go to school, and participate in politics, but will have to wear the hijab, or headscarf. He said women won’t be required to have a male relative with them to leave their home, and that Taliban commanders in newly occupied districts have orders that universities, schools and markets operate as before, including with the participation of women and girls.
However, there have been repeated reports from captured districts of Taliban imposing harsh restrictions on women, even setting fire to schools. One gruesome video that emerged appeared to show Taliban killing captured commandos in northern Afghanistan.
Shaheen said some Taliban commanders had ignored the leadership’s orders against repressive and drastic behavior and that several have been put before a Taliban military tribunal and punished, though he did provide specifics. He contended the video was fake, a splicing of separate footage.
Shaheen said there are no plans to make a military push on Kabul and that the Taliban have so far “restrained” themselves from taking provincial capitals. But he warned they could, given the weapons and equipment they have acquired in newly captured districts. He contended that the majority of the Taliban’s battlefield successes came through negotiations, not fighting.
“Those districts which have fallen to us and the military forces who have joined us ... were through mediation of the people, through talks,” he said. “They (did not fall) through fighting ... it would have been very hard for us to take 194 districts in just eight weeks.”
The Taliban control about half of Afghanistan’s 419 district centers, and while they have yet to capture any of the 34 provincial capitals, they are pressuring about half of them, Milley said. In recent days, the U.S. has carried out airstrikes in support of beleaguered Afghan government troops in the southern city of Kandahar, around which the Taliban have been amassing, Pentagon press secretary John Kirby said Thursday.
The rapid fall of districts and the seemingly disheartened response by Afghan government forces have prompted U.S.-allied warlords to resurrect militias with a violent history. For many Afghans weary of more than four decades of war, that raises fears of a repeat of the brutal civil war in the early 1990s in which those same warlords battled for power.
“You know, no one no one wants a civil war, including me,” said Shaheen.
Shaheen also repeated Taliban promises aimed at reassuring Afghans who fear the group.
Read:Pulitzer Prize-winning Indian photojournalist killed in Afghanistan
Washington has promised to relocate thousands of U.S. military interpreters. Shaheen said they had nothing to fear from the Taliban and denied threatening them. But, he added, if some want to take asylum in the West because Afghanistan’s economy is so poor, “that is up to them.”
He also denied that the Taliban have threatened journalists and Afghanistan’s nascent civil society, which has been targeted by dozens of killings over the past year. The Islamic State group has taken responsibility for some, but the Afghan government has blamed the Taliban for most of the killings while the Taliban in turn accuse the Afghan government of carrying out the killings to defame them. Rarely has the government made arrests into the killings or revealed the findings of its investigations.
Shaheen said journalists, including those working for Western media outlets, have nothing to fear from a government that includes the Taliban.
“We have not issued letters to journalists (threatening them), especially to those who are working for foreign media outlets. They can continue their work even in the future,” he said.
Afghan president slams Taliban; rockets target Kabul palace
At least three rockets hit near the presidential palace on Tuesday shortly before Afghan President Ashraf Ghani was to give an address to mark the major Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha.
There were no injuries and the rockets landed outside the heavily fortified palace grounds, said Mirwais Stanikzai, spokesman for the interior minister.
No one immediately claimed responsibility for the rocket attack, but police quickly fanned out across area. One car parked on a nearby street was completely destroyed; the police said it was used as launching pad for the rockets.
Read: Pulitzer Prize-winning Indian photojournalist killed in Afghanistan
The palace is in the middle of a so-called Green Zone that is fortified with giant cement blast walls and barbed wire, and streets near the palace have long been closed off.
The barrage came as the U.S. and NATO complete their final withdrawal from Afghanistan. Many Afghans are worried whether their war-ravaged country will fall deeper into chaos and violence as foreign forces withdraw and the Taliban gain more territory on the ground, having captured several districts and key border crossings with neighboring countries over the past weeks.
The withdrawal is more than 95% complete and the final U.S. soldier will be gone by Aug. 31, President Joe Biden said in an address earlier this month.
“This Eid has been named after Afghan forces to honor their sacrifices and courage, especially in the last three months,” Ghani said in his address to the nation following morning prayers for Eid al-Adha, or the “Feast of Sacrifice.”
“The Taliban have no intention and willingness for peace” Ghani said. “We have proven that we have the intention, willingness and have sacrificed for peace.”
Read: Women’s groups call for UN peacekeeping force in Afghanistan
Ghani also deplored his government’s decision to release 5,000 Taliban prisoners to get peace talks started last year as a “big mistake” that only strengthened the insurgents.
“We released 5,000 prisoners to start peace talks, but until today the Taliban haven’t shown any serious or meaningful interest in peace negotiations.”
Abdullah Abdullah, the No. 2 official in the government, was inside the palace during the rocket attack on Tuesday, having returned on Monday from peace talks with the Taliban in Qatar. Those inside the palace, however, were far removed from where the rockets landed.
The two days of meetings in Doha — the highest level of negotiations between Kabul and the Taliban so far — aimed at jumpstarting stalled talks but ended with a promise of more high-level talks.
In his speech, Ghani also assailed neighboring Pakistan, which Kabul blames for harboring the Taliban leadership and providing a safe haven and assistance to the insurgents. In the most recent fighting in the Afghan border town of Spin Boldak, Taliban fighters were seen receiving treatment at a Pakistani hospital across the border in Chaman.
Read:Taliban surge in north Afghanistan sends thousands fleeing
Pakistan is seen as key to peace in Afghanistan. The Taliban leadership is headquartered in Pakistan and Islamabad has used its leverage, which it calims is now waning, to press the Taliban to talk peace.
Pakistan has also been deeply critical of Kabul, saying it has allowed another militant group, the Pakistani Taliban — Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan — to find safety in Afghanistan from where they have launched a growing number of attacks targeting the Pakistan military.
“Pakistan does not want a Taliban regime in its homeland” but their media have been “campaigning for a Taliban regime in Afghanistan,” Ghani added.
The Eid al-Adha is the most important Islamic holiday, marking the willingness of the Prophet Ibrahim — Abraham to Christians and Jews — to sacrifice his son. During the holiday, which in most places lasts four days, Muslims slaughter sheep or cattle and distribute part of the meat to the poor.
CJA shocked at killing of photojournalist Danish Siddiqui
The Commonwealth Journalists Association (CJA) has expressed deep shock at the passing away of photojournalist Danish Siddiqui in the call of professional duty in Afghanistan.
Siddiqui, 40, a Reuters photographer, had been embedded as a journalist with Afghan Special Forces based out of Kandahar and “had been reporting on fighting between Afghan commandos and Taliban fighters”, Reuters said.
A Pulitzer Prize-winning Indian photojournalist, Danish Siddiqui was killed July 16, 2021 while covering bloody clashes between Afghan security forces and the Taliban in the Spin Boldak district of Kandahar province, near Afghanistan’s border with Pakistan.
Read: Pulitzer Prize-winning Indian photojournalist killed in Afghanistan
He is survived by wife Rike and two children. He had captured some of the most riveting moments of major news events in India, South Asia and beyond over the last few years.
Those who condoled his death included Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani, India’ Information & Broadcasting Minister Anurag Thakur, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan.
Indian Foreign Secretary Harsh Vardhan Shringla, speaking at the UN Security Council in New York, condemned the killing of Siddiqui while on a reporting assignment.
The Afghanistan Embassy in New Delhi, Indian Embassy in Kabul and the ICRC were coordinating the follow-up. The Taliban handed over his body to the ICRC and arrangements were being made to bring the body to New Delhi.
Siddiqui had told Reuters that he had been wounded in the arm by shrapnel but had been treated and that the Taliban fighters had initially retreated from Spin Boldak. He died after the fighting resumed.
Reuters President Michael Freidenberg and Editor-in-Chief Alessandra Galloni, in a statement, said: “We’re urgently seeking more information, working with authorities in the region. Danish was an outstanding journalist, a devoted husband and father, and a much-loved colleague. Our thoughts are with his family at this terrible time.”
Read:Gaza-based journalists in Hamas chat blocked from WhatsApp
Testament to his courage and work, Siddiqui’s last account on July 13 is a brave telling of the fighting on the outskirts of Kandahar. He documented an extraction mission of the ASF while the Humvee he was travelling in was under attack. He captured the photograph of a young civilian caught in the middle of the conflict.
An alumnus of the Jamia Millia Islamia in Delhi, Siddiqui started out as a television reporter. He had been working with Reuters since 2010. He was part of the Reuters photography team that won the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for Feature Photography for documenting the Rohingya refugee crisis.
Siddiqui also covered the war in Iraq, the Nepal earthquake, protests in Hong Kong, the Easter Sunday blasts in Sri Lanka.
At home, Siddiqui’s photographs were seminal works, from capturing the Delhi riots to the most recent images highlighting the gravity of the second Covid-19 wave.
In his Reuters profile, Siddiqui said of himself: “While I enjoy covering news stories – from business to politics to sports – what I enjoy most is capturing the human face of a breaking story…I shoot for the common man who wants to see and feel a story from a place where he can’t be present himself.”
Read:Journalist Ranjan appointmented 1st Secretary (Press) at Kolkata Mission
Last Friday, teachers and colleagues remembered Siddiqui as one of the best photojournalists of this generation. In a statement, the university said it “deeply mourns the tragic and untimely” death of Siddiqui. Vice-Chancellor Najma Akhtar called it a “big loss to journalism and the Jamia fraternity”.
Siddiqui also taught photography at the Jamia. His last class was on April 26 this year for which he found time during the Covid-19 second wave.
The CJA dips its flag to mourn the death of a sincere and dedicated photojournalist.
Women’s groups call for UN peacekeeping force in Afghanistan
Women’s rights supporters and faith leaders are calling for a United Nations peacekeeping force for Afghanistan to protect hard-won gains for women over the last two decades as American and NATO forces complete their pullout from the war-torn country and a Taliban offensive gains control over more territory.
Under the Taliban, women were not allowed to go to school, work outside the home or leave their house without a male escort. And though they still face many challenges in the country’s male-dominated society, Afghan women have increasingly stepped into powerful positions in numerous fields — and many fear the departure of international troops and a Taliban takeover could take away their gains.
In a May 14 letter obtained by The Associated Press, 140 civil society and faith leaders from the U.S., Afghanistan and other countries “dedicated to the education and rights of women in Afghanistan” asked U.S. President Joe Biden to call for a U.N. peacekeeping force “to ensure that the cost of U.S. military withdrawal from Afghanistan is not paid for in the lives of schoolgirls.”
Also read: Taliban surge in north Afghanistan sends thousands fleeing
The letter also asked the U.S. to increase humanitarian and development aid to Afghanistan “as an important security strategy” to strengthen women and girls and religious minorities like the Hazaras. Three bombings at a high school in a Hazara neighborhood in Kabul on May 8 killed nearly 100 people, all of them Hazara and most of them young girls just leaving class.
The signatories blamed the Trump administration for failing to honor a U.N. Security Council resolution adopted in 2000 demanding equal participation for women in activities promoting global peace “by refusing to insist that women were part of the peace talks” with the Taliban.
Sakena Yacoobi, founder of the Afghan Institute of Learning which runs schools across 16 provinces, is quoted in the letter as saying: “For 20 years the West told the women of Afghanistan they are free. Free to learn, to grow, to be a human being independent of men’s expectations of who they are.”
Also read: US to keep about 650 troops in Afghanistan after withdrawal
“What the Taliban did in the 1990s was bad enough,” she said. “What will they do now, with a generation of women taught to expect freedom? It will be one of the greatest crimes against humanity in history. Help us save them. Please. Help us save who we can.”
Among the signatories of the letter were Yacoobi; feminist activist and writer Gloria Steinem; former U.N. deputy secretary-general Mark Malloch Brown who now heads the Open Society Institute; Filmmaker and philanthropist Abigail Disney; former UNICEF executive director Carol Bellamy; Betty Reardon, the International Institute on Peace Education’s founding director emeritus; The Rev. Dr. Chloe Breyer, executive director of The Interfaith Center of New York; Masuda Sultan, co-founder of Women for Afghan Women; and Nasir Ahmad Kayhan, UNESCO program manager in Afghanistan.
In April the Taliban promised that women “can serve their society in the education, business, health and social fields while maintaining correct Islamic hijab.” It promised girls would have the right to choose their own husbands, but offered few other details and didn’t guarantee women could participate in politics or have freedom to move unaccompanied by a male relative.
Deborah Lyons, the U.N. special envoy for Afghanistan, told the Security Council on June 22 that “preserving the rights of women remains a paramount concern and must not be used as a bargaining chip at the negotiating table.”
In a follow-up letter on July 12 to U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield, a wider international group expressed deep concern “for the lives and well-being of the people of Afghanistan, especially women and girls now under great threat” and called for a U.N. peacekeeping mission to deploy to Afghanistan “as soon as practically possible.”
The signatories said they are convinced the 2000 Security Council resolution obliges U.N. member states “to protect women in such circumstances.”
The United Nations has a political mission in Afghanistan. A U.N. peacekeeping mission would have to be approved by the Security Council, where the five permanent members -- the U.S., Russia, China, Britain and France -- have veto power.
The letter to the U.S. ambassador said similar messages were being sent to other U.N. ambassadors from citizens in their countries asking for a peacekeeping operation. It asked Thomas-Greenfield to “take action toward the initiation of a peacekeeping operation in Afghanistan.”
A U.S. mission spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment on the call for a U.N. peacekeeping force, instead stressing Thursday that the Biden administration will continue to support Afghan forces and U.S. “diplomatic, humanitarian and economic engagement in the region.”
“We are putting our full weight behind diplomatic efforts to reach a peace agreement between the Taliban and the Afghan government,” said the spokesperson, who could not be named, adding the U.S. remains the largest aid donor to Afghanistan and continues to support the U.N. political mission known as UNAMA.
Taliban surge in north Afghanistan sends thousands fleeing
Sakina, who is 11, maybe 12, walked with her family for 10 days after the Taliban seized her village in northern Afghanistan and burned down the local school.
They are now among around 50 families living in a makeshift camp on a rocky patch of land on the edge of the northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif. They roast in plastic tents under scorching heat that reaches 44 degrees Celsius (110 degrees Fahrenheit) at midday. There are no trees, and the only bathroom for the entire camp is a tattered tent pitched over a foul-smelling hole.
As the Taliban surge through northern Afghanistan — a traditional stronghold of U.S.-allied warlords and an area dominated by the country’s ethnic minorities — thousands of families like Sakina’s are fleeing their homes, fearful of living under the insurgents’ rule.
In the last 15 days, Taliban advances have driven more than 5,600 families from their homes, most of them in the northern reaches of the country, according to the government’s Refugee and Repatriations Ministry.
Read: US left Afghan airfield at night, didn’t tell new commander
In Camp Istiqlal, family after family, all from the Hazara ethnic minority, told of Taliban commanders using heavy-handed tactics as they overran their towns and villages — raising doubts among many over their persistent promises amid negotiations that they will not repeat their harsh rule of the past.
Sakina said it was the middle of the night when her parents packed up their belongings and fled their village of Abdulgan in Balkh province, but not before the invading Taliban set fire to her school. Sakina said she doesn’t understand why her school was burned.
In Camp Istiqlal, there’s not a single light, and sometimes she hears noises in the pitch blackness of night. “I think maybe it’s the Taliban and they have come here. I am afraid,” said the girl, who hopes one day to be an engineer.
Yaqub Maradi fled his village of Sang Shanda, not far from Abdulgan, when the Taliban arrived. He said they tried to intimidate villagers into staying. Maradi’s brother and several members of his family were arrested, “held hostage to stop them from leaving,” he said.
“Maybe he is released today, but he cannot leave,” Maradi said from inside his small sweltering plastic tent pitched over a sunbaked mud floor, with mattresses folded in one corner.
A howling, brutally hot wind ripped through the tent as Mohammad Rahimi, the self-appointed camp leader, who also fled from Abdulgan, recalled how a poorly equipped militia force in his Zari district tried to defend against a larger Taliban force. Rahimi named a handful of militia fighters he said died defending their district.
In areas they control, the Taliban have imposed their own fees and taxes. Ashor Ali, a truck driver, told The Associated Press he pays the Taliban a 12,000 Afghani ($147) toll for every load of coal he brings from a Taliban-controlled part of neighboring Samangan province to Mazar-e-Sharif. That amounts to more than half of what he makes on each haul.
The Taliban are attending international conferences, even sending their ex-ministers on missions to Afghanistan from Qatar, where they have a political office, to assure Afghans they have nothing to fear from them, especially minorities. The group still espouses Islamic rule but says its methods and tenets are less severe.
But if it’s a gentler face they are seeking to portray, fleeing residents say it seems many Taliban commanders in the field either haven’t gotten the message or aren’t listening.
Read:US vacates key Afghan base; pullout target now 'late August'
A February 2020 agreement the Taliban signed with the United States reportedly prevents the insurgents from capturing provincial capitals. Yet two — Kandahar in the south and Badghis in the north — are under siege. In the capital of Kabul, where many fear an eventual Taliban assault, a rocket defense system has been installed, the Ministry of Interior said over the weekend. The statement offered no detail about its origin or cost.
The U.S., Russia, China and even Afghanistan’s neighbor Pakistan, where the Taliban leadership council is headquartered, have all warned the Taliban against trying for a military victory, warning they will be international pariahs. Taliban leaders have vowed they are not doing so, even as they boast of their gains in recent meetings in Iran and in Russia,
The Taliban blame the Afghan government for foiling efforts to jumpstart stalled talks that would elevate discussions to include leaders on both sides of the conflict.
Suhail Shaheen, the Taliban’s political spokesman and a member of its negotiation team, told the AP that on three different occasions his side waited for a high-level delegation from Kabul to come to Doha for talks. They never came, he said.
The Kabul delegation was to include former President Hamid Karzai, as well as Abdullah Abdullah, the head of the National Reconciliation Council, and senior warlords like Ata Mohammad Noor, one of the most powerful northern commanders.
Afghan officials familiar with the planned meetings confirmed their intent to travel to Doha and participate, but said President Ashraf Ghani has been reluctant, often obstructing efforts. They spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the negotiations with reporters.
Last week, President Joe Biden urged Afghanistan’s leaders to find unity and said it was up to Afghans to bring an end to decades of war. With 90% of the final U.S. and NATO withdrawal completed and its top commander Gen. Scott Miller having relinquished his command, Washington is nearing the end of its “forever war.”
Maradi, whose brother was refused permission to leave, said he doesn’t trust the Taliban promises.
Many are still haunted by memories of the tit-for-tat massacres that had characterized the Taliban rule in areas dominated by Afghanistan’s ethnic minorities in the late 1990s.
Read:Taliban gains drive Afghan government to recruit militias
Mazar-e-Sharif was the scene of horrific bloodletting. In 1997, Uzbek and Hazara fighters killed some 2,000 ethnic Pashtun Taliban, who were captured in the city after a truce deal fell through. In some case, they forced the captives to jump into pits on the plains north of the city, then threw in grenades and sprayed them with automatic weapons. The next year, the Taliban rampaged through Mazar-e-Sharif, killing thousands of Hazaras and driving tens of thousands more out fleeing to Kabul.
At Camp Istiqlal life is brutal. There’s little water to wash, most meals are bread and tea brought to the camp by Rahimi, the leader. Fatima, who cradled her sickly 2-month-old daughter Kobra, said she hadn’t had much food or drink since arriving about one week ago and was unable to produce enough milk to feed her infant. Another mother showed blisters covering the arms and legs of her 2-year-old son, Mohammad Nabi. In the nighttime blackness he knocked over scalding water. They said they have no money for a doctor.
The camp residents say no one has come to help them.
At the edge of the camp, Habibullah Amanullah cried, his 7-year old daughter hiding behind his arm. “She asks me for something to eat. What can I tell her? We have nothing.”
US left Afghan airfield at night, didn’t tell new commander
The U.S. left Afghanistan’s Bagram Airfield after nearly 20 years by shutting off the electricity and slipping away in the night without notifying the base’s new Afghan commander, who discovered the Americans’ departure more than two hours after they left, Afghan military officials said.
Afghanistan’s army showed off the sprawling air base Monday, providing a rare first glimpse of what had been the epicenter of America’s war to unseat the Taliban and hunt down the al-Qaida perpetrators of the 9/11 attacks on America.
The U.S. announced Friday it had completely vacated its biggest airfield in the country in advance of a final withdrawal the Pentagon says will be completed by the end of August.
“We (heard) some rumor that the Americans had left Bagram ... and finally by seven o’clock in the morning, we understood that it was confirmed that they had already left Bagram,” Gen. Mir Asadullah Kohistani, Bagram’s new commander said.
Read: US vacates key Afghan base; pullout target now 'late August'
U.S. military spokesman Col. Sonny Leggett did not address the specific complaints of many Afghan soldiers who inherited the abandoned airfield, instead referring to a statement last week.
The statement said the handover of the many bases had been in the process soon after President Joe Biden’s mid-April announcement that America was withdrawing the last of its forces. Leggett said in the statement that they had coordinated their departures with Afghanistan’s leaders.
Before the Afghan army could take control of the airfield about an hour’s drive from the Afghan capital Kabul, it was invaded by a small army of looters, who ransacked barrack after barrack and rummaged through giant storage tents before being evicted, according to Afghan military officials.
“At first we thought maybe they were Taliban,” said Abdul Raouf, a soldier of 10 years. He said the the U.S. called from the Kabul airport and said “we are here at the airport in Kabul.”
Kohistani insisted the Afghan National Security and Defense Force could hold on to the heavily fortified base despite a string of Taliban wins on the battlefield. The airfield also includes a prison with about 5,000 prisoners, many of them allegedly Taliban.
The Taliban’s latest surge comes as the last U.S. and NATO forces pull out of the country. As of last week, most NATO soldiers had already quietly left. The last U.S. soldiers are likely to remain until an agreement to protect the Kabul Hamid Karzai International Airport, which is expected to be done by Turkey, is completed.
Meanwhile, in northern Afghanistan, district after district has fallen to the Taliban. In just the last two days hundreds of Afghan soldiers fled across the border into Tajikistan rather than fight the insurgents.
“In battle it is sometimes one step forward and some steps back,” said Kohistani.
Read: US hands Bagram Airfield to Afghans after nearly 20 years
Kohistani said the Afghan military is changing its strategy to focus on the strategic districts. He insisted they would retake them in the coming days without saying how that would be accomplished.
On display on Monday was a massive facility, the size of a small city, that had been exclusively used by the U.S. and NATO. The sheer size is extraordinary, with roadways weaving through barracks and past hangar-like buildings. There are two runways and over 100 parking spots for fighter jets known as revetments because of the blast walls that protect each aircraft. One of the two runways is 12,000 feet (3,660 meters) long and was built in 2006. There’s a passenger lounge, a 50-bed hospital and giant hangar-size tents filled with supplies such as furniture.
Kohistani said the U.S. left behind 3.5 million items, all itemized by the departing U.S. military. They include tens of thousands of bottles of water, energy drinks and military ready-made meals, known as MRE’s.
“When you say 3.5 million items, it is every small items, like every phone, every door knob, every window in every barracks, every door in every barracks,” he said.
The big ticket items left behind include thousands of civilian vehicles, many of them without keys to start them, and hundreds of armored vehicles. Kohistani said the U.S. also left behind small weapons and the ammunition for them, but the departing troops took heavy weapons with them. Ammunition for weapons not being left behind for the Afghan military was blown up before they left.
Afghan soldiers who wandered Monday throughout the base that had once seen as many as 100,000 U.S. troops were deeply critical of how the U.S. left Bagram, leaving in the night without telling the Afghan soldiers tasked with patrolling the perimeter.
“In one night, they lost all the goodwill of 20 years by leaving the way they did, in the night, without telling the Afghan soldiers who were outside patrolling the area,” said Afghan soldier Naematullah, who asked that only his one name be used.
Within 20 minutes of the U.S.’s silent departure on Friday, the electricity was shut down and the base was plunged into darkness, said Raouf, the soldier of 10 years who has also served in Taliban strongholds of Helmand and Kandahar provinces.
Read:Biden vows 'sustained' help as Afghanistan drawdown nears
The sudden darkness was like a signal to the looters, he said. They entered from the north, smashing through the first barrier, ransacking buildings, loading anything that was not nailed down into trucks.
On Monday, three days after the U.S. departure, Afghan soldiers were still collecting piles of garbage that included empty water bottles, cans and empty energy drinks left behind by the looters.
Kohistani, meanwhile, said the nearly 20 years of U.S. and NATO involvement in Afghanistan was appreciated but now it was time for Afghans to step up.
“We have to solve our problem. We have to secure our country and once again build our country with our own hands,” he said.
US hands Bagram Airfield to Afghans after nearly 20 years
After nearly 20 years, the U.S. military left Bagram Airfield, the epicenter of its war to oust the Taliban and hunt down the al-Qaida perpetrators of the 9/11 terrorist attacks on America, two U.S. officials said Friday.
The airfield was handed over to the Afghan National Security and Defense Force in its entirety, they said on condition they not be identified because they were not authorized to release the information to the media.
One of the officials also said the U.S. top commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Austin S. Miller, “still retains all the capabilities and authorities to protect the forces.”
Afghanistan’s district administrator for Bagram, Darwaish Raufi, said the American departure was done overnight without any coordination with local officials, and as a result early Friday dozens of local looters stormed through the unprotected gates before Afghan forces regained control.
Read:Biden vows 'sustained' help as Afghanistan drawdown nears
“They were stopped and some have been arrested and the rest have been cleared from the base,” Raufi told The Associated Press, adding that the looters ransacked several buildings before being arrested and the Afghan National Security and Defense Forces (ANDSF) took control.
“Unfortunately the Americans left without any coordination with Bagram district officials or the governor’s office,” Raufi said. “Right now our Afghan security forces are in control both inside and outside of the base.”
The deputy spokesman for the defense minister, Fawad Aman, said nothing of the early morning looting. He said only the base has been handed over and the “ANDSF will protect the base and use it to combat terrorism.”
The withdrawal from Bagram Airfield is the clearest indication that the last of the 2,500-3,500 U.S. troops have left Afghanistan or are nearing a departure, months ahead of President Joe Biden’s promise that they would be gone by Sept. 11.
It was clear soon after the mid-April announcement that the U.S. was ending its “forever war,” that the departure of U.S. soldiers and their estimated 7,000 NATO allies would be nearer to July 4, when America celebrates its Independence Day.
Most NATO soldiers have already quietly exited as of this week. Announcements from several countries analyzed by The Associated Press show that a majority of European troops has now left with little ceremony — a stark contrast to the dramatic and public show of force and unity when NATO allies lined up to back the U.S. invasion in 2001.
The U.S. has refused to say when the last U.S. soldier would leave Afghanistan, citing security concerns, but also the protection of Kabul’s Hamid Karzai International Airport is still being negotiated. Turkish and U.S. soldiers currently are protecting the airport. That protection is currently covered under the Resolute Support Mission, which is the military mission being wound down.
Read:Taliban gains drive Afghan government to recruit militias
Until a new agreement for the airport’s protection is negotiated between Turkey and the Afghan government, and possibly the United States, the Resolute Support mission would appear to have to continue in order to give international troops the legal authority.
The U.S. will also have about 650 troops in Afghanistan to protect its sprawling embassy in the capital. Their presence it is understood will be covered in a bilateral agreement with the Afghan government.
The U.S. and NATO leaving comes as Taliban insurgents make strides in several parts of the country, overrunning dozens of districts and overwhelming beleaguered Afghan security Forces.
In a worrying development, the government has resurrected militias with a history of brutal violence to assist the Afghan security forces. At what had all the hallmarks of a final press conference, Gen. Miller this week warned that continued violence risked a civil war in Afghanistan that should have the world worried.
At its peak around 2012, Bagram Airfield saw more than 100,000 U.S. troops pass through its sprawling compound barely an hour’s drive north of the Afghan capital Kabul.
The departure is rife with symbolism. Not least, it’s the second time that an invader of Afghanistan has come and gone through Bagram.
Read: US to keep about 650 troops in Afghanistan after withdrawal
The Soviet Union built the airfield in the 1950s. When it invaded Afghanistan in 1979 to back a communist government, it turned it into its main base from which it would defend its occupation of the country. For 10 years, the Soviets fought the U.S.-backed mujahedeen, dubbed freedom fighters by President Ronald Reagan, who saw them as a front-line force in one of the last Cold War battles.
When the U.S. and NATO inherited Bagram in 2001, they found it in ruins, a collection of crumbling buildings, gouged by rockets and shells, most of its perimeter fence wrecked. It had been abandoned after being battered in the battles between the Taliban and rival mujahedeen warlords fleeing to their northern enclaves.
The enormous base has two runways. The most recent, at 12,000 feet long, was built in 2006 at a cost of $96 million. There are 110 revetments, which are basically parking spots for aircraft, protected by blast walls. GlobalSecurity, a security think tank, says Bagram includes three large hangars, a control tower and numerous support buildings. The base has a 50-bed hospital with a trauma bay, three operating theaters and a modern dental clinic. Another section houses a prison, notorious and feared among Afghans.
There was no immediate comment from Afghan officials as to the final withdrawal from Bagram Airfield by the U.S. and its NATO allies.
Taliban gains drive Afghan government to recruit militias
For two days the fighting was blistering. Rockets and heavy machine gun fire pounded Imam Sahib, a key district on Afghanistan’s northern border with Tajikistan.
When the explosions died down and Syed Akram finally emerged from his home earlier this week, three of his neighbor’s children had been killed, and a tank was burning on a nearby street corner. Several shops and a petrol station were still smoldering. In the streets, the Taliban were in control.
There were maybe 300 of them, he said. That had been plenty to overwhelm the government troops defending the town, who had numbered fewer than 100. Akram saw several bodies of soldiers in the street, but many had fled the district center.
In recent days, the Taliban have made quick gains in Afghanistan’s north, overrunning multiple districts, some of them reportedly with hardly a fight, even as the U.S. and NATO press forward with their final withdrawal from Afghanistan. By all accounts their departure will be complete long before the Sept. 11 deadline set by President Joe Biden when he announced in mid-April an end to America’s “forever war.”
READ: Taliban take key Afghan district, adding to string of gains
The Taliban gains are significant because of the transportation routes they provide the insurgents. But equally significant is that the north is the traditional stronghold of Afghanistan’s minority ethnic groups, who aided the U.S.-led invasion that drove the Taliban from power nearly 20 years ago and have been part of the ruling leadership since.
The traditional stronghold of the Taliban, who are mostly ethnic Pashtuns, has been in the country’s south and east.
With the recent gains, Taliban now control the main border crossing with Tajikistan, a main trade route. They also hold the strategic district of Doshi, critical because the one road linking Kabul to northern Afghanistan runs through it.
As a result, a worried government this week launched what it called National Mobilization, arming local volunteers. Observers say the move only resurrects militias that will be loyal to local commanders or powerful Kabul-allied warlords, who wrecked the Afghan capital during the inter-factional fighting of the 1990s and killed thousands of civilians.
“The fact that the government has put out the call for the militias is a clear admission of the failure of the security forces ... most certainly an act of desperation,” said Bill Roggio, senior fellow at the U.S.-based Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Roggio tracks militant groups and is editor of the foundation’s Long War Journal.
“The Afghan military and police have abandoned numerous outposts, bases, and district centers, and it is difficult to imagine that these hastily organized militias can perform better than organized security forces,” he said.
On Wednesday at Koh Daman on Kabul’s northern edge, dozens of armed villagers in one of the first National Mobilization militias gathered at a rally. “Death to criminals!” and “Death to Taliban!” they shouted, waving automatic rifles. Some had rocket propelled grenade launchers resting casually on their shoulders.
A handful of uniformed Afghan National Police officers watched. “We need them, we have no leadership, we have no help,” said Moman, one of the policemen.
He criticized the Defense and Interior Ministries, saying they were stuffed with overpaid officials while the front-line troops receive little pay.
“I’m the one standing here for 24 hours like this with all this equipment to defend my country,” he said, indicating his weapons and vest jammed with ammunition. “But in the ministries, officials earn thousands” of dollars. He spoke on condition he be identified only by his first name for fear of reprisals.
The other police standing nearby joined in with the criticism, others nodding in agreement. New recruits in the security forces get 12,000 Afghanis a month, about $152, with higher ranks getting the equivalent of about $380.
The U.S. and NATO have committed to paying $4 billion annually until 2024 to support the Afghanistan National Security and Defense Forces. Still, even Washington’s official watchdog auditing spending says Afghan troops are disillusioned and demoralized with corruption rife throughout the government.
As the districts fell, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani swept through his Defense and Interior Ministries, appointing new senior leadership, including reinstating Bismillah Khan as defense minister. Khan was previously removed for corruption, and his militias have been criticized for summary killings. They were also deeply involved in the brutal civil war that led to the Taliban’s takeover in 1996.
READ: US-backed Afghan peace meeting postponed, as Taliban balk
Afghan and international observers fear a similar conflict could erupt once more. During the 1990’s war, multiple warlords battled for power, nearly destroying Kabul and killing at least 50,000 people — mostly civilians — in the process.
Those warlords returned to power after the Taliban’s fall and have gained wealth and strength since. They are jealous of their domains, deeply distrustful of each other, and their loyalties to Ghani are fluid. Ethnic Uzbek warlord Rashid Dostum Uzbek, for example, violently ousted the president’s choice for governor of his Uzbek-controlled province of Faryab earlier this year.
A former adviser to the Afghan government, Torek Farhadi, called the national mobilization “a recipe for future generalized violence.”
He noted the government has promised to pay the militias, even as official security forces complain salaries are often delayed for months. He predicted the same corruption would eat away at the funds meant for militias, and as a result “local commanders and warlords will quickly turn against him (Ghani) and we will have fiefdoms and chaos.”
Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid told The Associated Press on Thursday that the insurgents captured 104 districts since May 1, including at least 29 in recent fighting. That brought the total area of Taliban control to 165 of Afghanistan’s 471 districts nationwide.
There was no way to immediately verify his statements, and some areas often change hands back and forth. Most analysts tracking the front lines say the Taliban control or hold sway in roughly half the country. Their areas of control are mostly in rural areas.
Officials and observers say many across the country have allegiance to neither side and are deeply disillusioned by corruption, which has resulted in ordinary Afghans benefiting little from the trillions of dollars in international assistance pumped into the country the past 20 years.
“There is no stability. There is no peace,” said Abdul Khasani, an employee at a bus station not far from the Koh Daman militia gathering.
“In Afghanistan, under the Taliban people are suffering, and under the government people are suffering,” he said.
Taliban take key Afghan district, adding to string of gains
Taliban fighters took control of a key district in Afghanistan’s northern Kunduz province Monday and encircled the provincial capital, police said, as the insurgent group added to its recent battlefield victories while peace talks have stalemated.
The Taliban’s gains came as the Pentagon reaffirmed the U.S. troop withdrawal was still on pace to conclude by early September.
Fighting around Imam Sahib district began late Sunday and by midday Monday the Taliban had overrun the district headquarters and were in control of police headquarters, said Inamuddin Rahmani, provincial police spokesman said.
Taliban militants were within a kilometer (.6 miles) of Kunduz, the provincial capital but had not entered into the city, he said, although there were reports of small bands of Taliban near the outskirts and residents trying to leave for Kabul.
Read: Afghan official: bombs hit 2 minivans in Kabul, 7 dead
Dozens of districts have fallen to the Taliban since May 1, when U.S. and NATO troops began their final departure from Afghanistan. Like Imam Sahib district in northern Kunduz, their significance often lies in their proximity to roads and major cities.
Imam Sahib is strategically located near Afghanistan’s northern border with Tajikistan, a key supply route from Central Asia.
Rahmani said police and Afghan National Army soldiers had jointly tried to defend the district. He said it still wasn’t clear how many casualties the Afghan National Security and Defense Forces suffered in the protracted battle or how many Taliban were killed or wounded.
Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahed confirmed Imam Sahib district was in Taliban hands.
Several other districts in Kunduz have also fallen to the insurgent group in the latest round of fighting, including Dasht-e-Archi, which neighbors Imam Sahib, said Rahmani, further consolidating local transportation links in the area.
Syed Mohammad Mousavi drove with his family to the relative safety of Kabul from northern Mazar-e-Sharif, about 120 kilometers (75 miles) west of Kunduz on Sunday.
He said people were trying to leave Kunduz city for Kabul fearing additional fighting. “The Taliban were all over the road, checking cars. We were very scared,” he said after reaching the capital.
Read: NATO leaders bid symbolic adieu to Afghanistan at summit
In recent days, the Taliban have taken several districts across the three northern provinces of Kunduz, Baghlan and Balkh, said Mousavi. Significantly, witnesses said Doshi district in Baghlan province was in Taliban hands, which if it true gives the insurgent group control of the one road that links five northern provinces to the capital Kabul.
The Taliban have circulated videos on their website and to WhatsApp groups which they claim show government soldiers who have surrendered being told to return to their homes and receiving money from the Taliban. On Sunday, Taliban leader Mawlawi Hibatullah Akhunzada issued a statement ordering his soldiers to “treat those who surrender well and display good behavior with them.”
But the fighting has been bitter in some districts with both sides suffering casualties. A senior police official speaking on condition he not be identified because he is not authorized to speak to the media said the police fighting in the districts are mostly from poor families. Those families have remained poor despite the trillions of dollars spent in Afghanistan in the past 20 years. “They have not seen changes in their lives and are indifferent so they see no difference. ... They want to save their lives just for today.”
Taliban gains and the steady withdrawal of the remaining 2,500-3,500 U.S. troops and 7,000 NATO forces have lent an urgency to efforts to find a negotiated end to Afghanistan’s protracted conflict.
Pentagon press secretary John Kirby on Monday said Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has regularly reviewed the U.S. withdrawal, which he said is “on pace” and will be finished by early September. “It is a dynamic situation, and we’ve said that from the very beginning,” Kirby said.
Austin is “looking at the situation every day with a fresh set of eyes to see if, you know, the pace we are setting is the appropriate pace.” Among the uncertainties, officials have said, is the State Department’s needs for embassy security and its decisions about getting interpreters and other Afghans who worked with the Americans out of the country.
Read: Afghan Hazaras being killed at school, play, even at birth
Talks between the government and the Taliban taking place in Qatar have stalemated. While Taliban leaders say they are ready to negotiate, observers familiar with the talks say the insurgent movement seems more anxious to chalk up military gains hoping to strengthen their negotiating position.
Later this week, President Joe Biden will meet with Afghan President Ashraf Ghani and Abdullah Abdullah, the head of the country’s High Council for National Reconciliation, which overseas the government’s negotiation team.
Friday’s meeting in Washington, according to a White House statement, is intended to reaffirm America’s financial and humanitarian aid “to support the Afghan people, including Afghan women, girls and minorities.”
White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said Monday their conversation would also “continue to discuss how we can work together to ensure that Afghanistan never again becomes a safe haven for terrorist groups who pose a threat to the U.S. homeland.”